She swore Juliet smiled – right? – before she squeezed her eyes tightly closed, shaking her head, no trace of a smile to be seen.
Darcy didn’t even realize she’d inched forward where she was also straddling the bench facing Juliet, until their knees brushed.
At the contact, Juliet’s voice seemed to creak out of her throat in the quietest whisper, “It’s not meaningless or impersonal to me, either. Okay?”
Her heart skipped a beat, before starting to pound in her chest faster and harder. “Okay,” she breathed out, and… god, she wanted to celebrate that. She wanted to take the relief that gave her andrunwith it.
But could she? Because what did that mean?
“Juliet, I don’t know what I’m doing here. You know that,” she let out a breathless laugh, feeling completely out of her depth. “I don’t know what the hell to do with that. Does that mean we keep doing what we’ve been doing? Does it mean youfeel like you have to treat me like someone you don’t even know when we’re in public, now? Because I don’t – I can’tdothat.”
Darcy wasn’t the actor that Juliet was, and she didn’t want to be.
Juliet’s hands were on her thighs, and she could see how hard Juliet was digging her fingertips in with how they turned white.
“Darcy, I… this isn’t really a precedented situation for me, either. My rules of engagement are there because it gives me some control.” Juliet took in a deep, shaky breath, before she admitted, “I don’t really have a lot of that in my life. Control.”
Juliet’s voice was so hoarse, so tremulous, it was totally at-odds with what Juliet actually said.
She reeled back, incredulity shooting through her. “Juliet, you are the most in-control person I know. You havenoproblem controlling a room.”
“But no control where it fucking counts!” The words burst from Juliet’s lips, very clearly out of her control.
Darcy startled, not understanding what Juliet meant by that.Where it counts?
Juliet licked her lips, shaking her head as she dropped her eyes from Darcy’s. Almost like she couldn’t bring herself to look at Darcy when she started to speak.
“When my mom married Harrison…” She narrowed her eyes to a sharp glare down at the bench. “We both thought that all of the struggles, the times I was singing for our supper quite literally, the hiding from bill collectors… we thought it was over. And that part of it was.”
Darcy felt her mouth fall open, rocked by that revelation. Yes, Harrison was Juliet’sstepdad, so obviously he’d married her mother when she’d been a child. But… but nothing else Juliet said was public information. Nothing else Juliet said hadever made it into interviews or biography information on any website.
But she knew Juliet was being honest, because she seemed so… uncertain about how to speak this part of her life story into existence.
“I didn’t know that,” she stated the obvious, unable not to.
Juliet’s smile was tight, as she flashed it back to Darcy. “Yeah, well, it’s not part of the Juliet Jacobs image. Because I wasn’t Juliet Jacobs, then; I was still Juliet Duncan. But it was decided from day one that we would both be taking Harrison’s name.Juliet Jacobsis good for marketability.”
There was such a sharpness, a pulsing anger in Juliet’s tone, Darcy was taken aback by the volatility. It was unlike anything she’d heard, including Juliet’s most snarky comments ever made about her.
“My mom met Harrison at his Christmas at the Ranch festival. I’d won a spot on the stage early in the day as a reward for coming in second in Little Miss San Antonio.” Juliet flattened her lips as she looked blankly out over Darcy’s shoulder, like she was picturing it in her mind. “It was a quick romance. He and my mom got married in less than a year. He had me in music lessons immediately.” She dragged her gaze back to Darcy’s, scoffing, “I thought… you know, I thought it was thedream.”
“Yeah, I would have, too.” Darcy couldn’t help herself from reaching out. Tentatively, unsure if Juliet would actually want her touch right now.
Her hands landed on Juliet’s knees, rubbing gently against her soft, bare skin revealed by her pajamas shorts. She’d missed feeling Juliet like this. God, she really had.
Juliet shook her head, the bitterness painted into her expression. “Maybe in some ways it was.” She shrugged, the movement sharp and jerky. “But… my mom wasn’tmineanymore. She was Harrison’s wife, first, forever from there onout. And all of my energy – I meanallof it – had to be dedicated to music. And you know what? For years, I didn’t care. I wanted it so badly, I didn’t realize…”
She trailed off, and Darcy could see how thickly she swallowed.
“I didn’t realize until it was already done that I’d become one of Harrison’s business investments. And I didn’t realize for even longer afterthat, that had been his plan for me the whole damn time. Probably since he saw me perform at the festival. If nothing else, he’s a great businessman.”
Darcy flexed her fingers against Juliet’s thighs, the sympathy working through her. “Juliet–”
But Juliet cut her off, “I realize it probably sounds stupid to you. Because you… you did it your way. You didn’t give in to people who pressured you, who wanted you to be anything else.”
No, she hadn’t. But she also hadn’t been seventeen with the world offered to her on a silver platter. If she had, there was no telling what she’d have agreed to at that point in time.
“And I hate it. I hate having to perform at Harrison’s personal events. I hate promoting his deals. But I was so desperate tomake itthat I’d have signed just about anything. So, I did. I signed a contract tying me to Harrison and to the whims of Copper Canyon for five albums.”
